Copyright (c) 2005-2012 Roger Dodger Aviation, LLCAll rights reservedItems sold by Roger Dodger Aviation, LLC are governed and protected by thecopyright laws of the United States of America and international intellectual property agreements

Roger Dodger Aviation's new Triple Screen Flight Simulator is on permanent display at the National Airline History Museum in Kansas City. Visit the museum and check it out! All visitors are welcome to fly the simulator.

Look at the list of names and businesses to the left. These extraordinary people made this project possible with their donations of money or labor or both.

This is their story. The story of how this flight simulator was funded, built and presented to the public.

A NEW DIY FLIGHT SIMULATOR for theNATIONAL AIRLINE HISTORY MUSEUM

This project was funded entirely by donations from individuals and small businesses. Thank you for the generous contributions:

THE CONSTRUCTIONAfter the Kickstarter campaign, Matt immediately ordered components and started construction of the flight simulator.

THE FUND-RAISERMany people were involved in the creation of this simulator, especially the funding of the project. The museum did not have a budget for the project, so the only option was to launch a fund-raiser on Kickstarter.com. Kickstarter is crowd-sourced fund raiser for creative projects like movies, music, art, etc. or in this case, a new kind of flight simulator.

THE MUSEUM AND BEYONDNow the Triple Screen Flight Simulator is at the National Airline History Museum. It is available for visitors to try out and experience what it is like to fly an airplane.

Roger Dodger Aviation produced a DIY video detailing the construction of the new flight simulator. This video and instruction manual is available here so anybody anywhere can build the same flight simulator for their home, school, museum, EAA chapter, etc.

The goal was to raise at least $2600, but a Kickstarter campaign is all or nothing. This means if we failed to reach our funding goal, we don't get any of the money and the project dies.

All or nothing, so spreading the word was vital.

Matt launched the project with a 30 day deadline. You don't really understand the gut-wringing stress that accompanies a Kickstarter campaign until you experience it yourself.

We used a variety of marketing strategies to spread the word and attract contributors.

In the end, we learned a lot about who in the world will actually support a project like this, and if our project was even worth supporting. Our top backer was Antonio Milaré from Brazil.

We reached the $2600 goal, plus a little more.

During the building process, Matt painstakingly took video of every step and the footage was used later in a Do-It-Yourself video that shows how anyone can build the same flight simulator. Our good friend Aaron Florkowski helped immensely with the new computer.

We had about three weeks to go from partial prototype to a finished, painted, working flight simulator.

This video shows the finale and credits of the DIY video. The names of all Kickstarter backers are listed in the credits. My friends that helped move and operate the simulator at the Maker Faire are also listed, as well as people that offered special assistance to the project.

Six months after the start of the fund-raiser, we met again at the museum with filmmaker Chris Williamson to make a promo video.

The Future...

Matt has started on the next DIY Flight Sim project. We will definitely return for next year's KC Maker Faire. In the future we may even be able to build additional flight simulators for the museum and network them so visitors can all fly in the same virtual airspace.

LIKE us on Facebook so you can stay updated on new projects and events!